Get it on Amazon:
Ten years ago a 13-year-old girl disappeared from her home. Each year her mother has begged the police to find her. Finally now she turns to ex-DI Barney Mains, a man who distrusts the police hierarchy as much as she does. But then an ex-cop is murdered right after Barney's visit. Is he being set up? Is he leading the killer to his victims, like some unwitting Angel of Death?
Monday, Nice, France
She sits there looking askance at him from across the expanse of his ancient desk, like she knows all about him and wishes she didn’t, a hint of amusement playing at the corners of her mouth.
‘Madam, your assistant was rather mysterious on the phone. Maybe you can tell me why you’ve come to see me today? But first of all, a name would be helpful.’
The dark eyelids remain at half mast and show not a flicker to suggest that she’s heard a word he said.
‘Madam, I appreciate that whatever you have to say may be difficult in some way, but tell me you must. If you believe that I may be able to help, that is.’
He’d been curious about this client ever since her personal assistant made the appointment. All he knew was that some kind soul had recommended his services and that the nameless lady across from him would explain everything in person. So he leans back in his chair and waits, intrigued by this mysterious character, rich according to her clothes, eccentric according to the natty black hat with its little veil which now sits perched on the coat-stand by the door, illuminated by a stray beam of morning light.
A sudden thought sets him on edge. If this is another lost bloody cat, I’ll scream!
Finally her haughty posture eases a tad. She gives her head the slightest of shakes, not quite enough to trouble the streams of auburn in her immaculate hair-do. He picks up a scent. It smells expensive but he has no idea about perfumes, apart from one, of course.
She sucks in some air and then finally raises the blinds and focuses on him. Her head tilts a little to the left, like maybe she’s willing to give him a second chance.
‘Mr Mains, I will be honest with you. I’m only here because a friend whose judgement I value has recommended you. I don’t mean to be rude but I honestly don’t believe that you - not you personally, you understand, but a, what is it, private eye or whatever, is going to be able to do what the entire French Police Nationale, Scotland Yard and Interpol have been unable to achieve in the past ten years.’
With that off her chest, she withdraws back into herself, perhaps into the past, which might explain why the colour is draining from her already gaunt features.
‘Can I offer you some water?’ He rises, leans over the cooler then puts a paper cupful in front of her.
She looks at it, at him, then decides to risk it.
‘I’m sorry. It’s just that now, being here, actually about to tell someone about it, all over again…’
‘I understand. Take your time. There’s no rush.’
She straightens, drains the cup, then with great care places it back on the exact same spot.
It doesn’t matter whether he likes a client or not but he thinks that perhaps he may this time. She appears to have a battle going on inside her, maybe whether to give up on something, or to carry on. And she’s here now because… well, probably because someone persuaded her against her better judgement, but also because she’s not quite ready to give up just yet.
‘If I may ask,’ he ventures, ‘would you be willing to tell me who recommended me?’
Her face bursts out in a glorious big smile.
My god, he thinks, this woman’s a beauty! Inside that pinched late-forties exterior, the original occupant seemed very much alive.
‘Oh, don’t bother your pretty little Scottish head about that. It is Scottish, isn’t it, that accent? I met one once.’
He can’t help it; he’s laughing and he doesn’t know why. ‘Yes, guilty as charged.’ Then he pauses as she draws back the reins on that disloyal smile. She’s ready now.
He opens his notebook, raises his eyebrows and receives a nod of permission.
‘Okay, Mr Mains. Here it is. And I’d appreciate it if you don’t interrupt. Thank you.’ Her voice is strong, her manner curt. Her eyes find something of interest in the high cornice behind him as she prepares to choose her words, carefully at first, like picking from a box of chocolates.
‘First of all, my name is Claire Faure. Yes, that one. The VEV Group. But that has nothing to do with it. You see, ten years ago, almost exactly, as it happens, I lost my beloved cat.’
Like an idiot, he coughs and splutters. ‘Oh, sorry. Bit of a sore throat today. Please carry on.’
She stares daggers at him then abruptly crosses her legs. He hears a whisper of nylon from beneath the skirt of her silky dark business suit.
‘Mr Mains, I think I asked you not to interrupt.’
He holds up both hands in silent apology and tries to look contrite as she resumes.
‘Lucifer was very precious to me, of course. I still miss him so much. But you can rest assured that it isn’t poor Lucifer’s disappearance which brings me here today. You see, that was only the beginning.’
Duly chastened, he pulls in his chair and waits, pen raised, for the rest of her story.
‘Lucifer wasn’t any old cat, you know. A champion, he was. National. And yes, he was worth what some would call a lot of money.
‘It was two days after he went missing. We were beside ourselves with worry, posting notices all over the neighbourhood.
‘Then I got a call on my personal phone. I never found out how they got my number. Twenty thousand, he said, or he’d send me Lucifer’s pelt. That’s what this cretin said. But of course I was happy to pay. I assumed it was just some low-life who would vanish back into his sewer as soon as he got his money. So, we arranged a drop-off, as he called it. A waste bin outside a particularly nasty little supermarket near the centre.’
She pauses, uncertain for a moment, as if the images are fading.
He gestures towards the water dispenser. She ignores him and carries on, focused again.
‘I should stress that he insisted it was I who made the delivery in person. I wasn’t too happy about that but it was a public place and of course, our security people would be everywhere. I was in absolutely no danger.’
She reads the question on his face. ‘Yes, Mr Mains, so what could possibly go wrong? Well, it wasn’t long before I found out. I put the money in the bin, returned to the car and drove off, back towards home. Twenty-three minutes, that journey takes. I’ve done it a thousand times since that day. Actually, if you don’t mind, I’ll take that water now.’
‘Of course.’
She takes a sip with both hands then lowers the cup between two rows of red lacquered nails and proceeds to stare into it as if she’s about to make a reading.
‘I knew even before I reached home. I don’t know how we can sense such things but I simply knew that something terrible was waiting for me there, and that there wasn’t a single thing I could do about it.’
Her head shoots up and her eyes are suddenly enormous.
‘Yes, Mr Mains. This is why I’m here. You see, ‘I felt it as soon as I entered; the silence, certainly, because my husband was away on business and the staff were on holiday.’
He speaks without thinking. ‘And because the security men were all stationed around the supermarket twenty minutes away.’
She gives him a look of amused surprise. ‘Very good, Mr Mains. Yes, poor, innocent little Lucifer had been a mere decoy. But it wasn’t only the silence I felt, or the sense of violation, knowing that someone had been in my home.’
He nods slowly as he wonders what kind of treasure they got away with and what could possibly be so precious as to claim ten years of a person’s life. Then he puzzles again why Scotland Yard and Interpol would get involved in a mere housebreaking in the South of France, however audacious the crime and however wealthy the victims.
She sees him doing the numbers, apparently waiting for him to come up with his best answer.
‘I’m guessing some priceless family heirloom. High-end art works, Old Masters or the like. It would have to be something on that level. Or am I wrong?’
Her chin is raised. She draws in a long, steady breath and her eyes empty as she stands in that room once more and realises that nothing would ever be the same again.
‘It was my daughter. They only wanted my thirteen-year-old daughter.’
Delete
She’s taken a time-out to get up and walk around the enormous, parquet-floored room, which is empty but for essentials such as his antique desk.
She stops at one of the two tall windows then stands surveying the city street with its hotchpotch of apartment blocks which sprang up all around the venerable little mansion over the last century.
He’s glad of the time to let everything sink in and to draw up a mental list of the many questions jostling for attention in his head.
She comes back to her chair, sits, then suddenly speaks as if she’d only paused for breath. ‘Strange that I hadn’t even noticed the table lamp lying on its side by the couch,’ she says. ‘But it was the mobile phone, right next to it… She never went anywhere without that phone, you see. That’s when I knew she’d been taken.’
‘Look, Madam Faure, I can’t tell you how sorry I am. I understand now. And of course I’ll doing anything I can to…’
She waves his words aside. ‘I know she’s still alive, you see. With the same certainty that I knew something awful awaited me at home that day.’
He tries to keep sympathy on his face, to keep his doubt to himself.
‘So tell me. What else did the police find?’
She gives a deep nod. ‘Yes, of course, there was more. I hadn’t noticed that the security system and cameras weren’t working. Upstairs, her bed cover had been pulled half onto the floor. They said there were drag marks on the carpet, that she must have run upstairs to get away.’
‘Who was in charge?’
‘Wait. There was something else. On the bedroom door. Four long scratches. A broken fingernail. A little blood.’
He feels his cheeks puff out. ‘That must have been hard for you.’
‘It was all hard, hearing this, yes. But not as hard as the days that followed. No publicity, the police said. Just wait for the ransom demand, they said.’
‘And?’
‘And we waited. Every hour, then the next day, the next… A whole week went by.’
‘You never heard from the kidnappers?’
She shakes her head too hard and tendrils of hair leap free to hang down over her left ear.
‘Of course not. That’s the point!’
‘But surely the police must have launched a public appeal for witnesses?’
She gives a short, bitter laugh. ‘That’s what I kept telling them to do. But the detective in charge finally told us that there’d been a similar case the year before. A young girl was kidnapped. I never heard about it at the time but I found it later online. A big public appeal, with a photo of the girl.’
She stops and merely stares at him.
‘And?’
‘And the poor girl’s body was found washed up along the coast a few days later.’
‘Shit!’
‘Quite. But the detective in charge swore to me that he wouldn’t let that happen this time. He said Interpol were close to trapping the gang behind both kidnappings and were afraid that any publicity could spoil everything, that the kidnappers would panic and decide they had to… destroy the evidence.’
‘Your daughter, you mean.’
She gives a series of short, distracted nods.
‘Madam, I can’t begin to imagine what you were going through. First they tell you to wait for a ransom demand and then that your daughter could die if news of her kidnapping gets out.’
‘Yes, though they claimed not to have known the bigger picture, the Interpol connection, at first.’
‘So, you went along with them for a while?’
She moves her head slowly from side to side, apparently still trying to believe it herself. ‘They just kept saying they were sure they’d get her back. Just told us to be brave for her.’
‘And your husband?’
‘John. I was a mess but he stayed calm. He reckoned we had no choice but to listen to the professionals, that they knew what they were doing.’
‘Look, I’m sorry but this was all before I was stationed here. I never saw the news coverage which must have come out eventually.’
‘That’s the problem. I kept saying I wanted to go to the press but my husband was always terrified that we could be signing her death warrant. And so, you see, it never came to light. Not at all. Not ever.’
Barney throws himself back into the arms of his creaky swivel chair. ‘But she couldn’t just vanish! What about her friends, her teachers? They must have been worried, asking questions.’
‘I know that this would normally be the case,’ she says, the pencil-thin lines of her eyebrows arched. ‘But Lucy was privately tutored.’ She pauses, deciding whether to say more. Then she suddenly comes out with it. ‘You’d better know this, that my darling girl was wonderful in every way. Beautiful, intelligent, loving. But she was also a somewhat troubled child. She required special schooling. And so nobody was too surprised when we said we’d sent her off to a specialist boarding school in England which could offer her the very best of care and education.’
‘And so she did, vanish I mean?’
‘Oh, I pressed the police to keep looking, to do something, anything.’
‘You mentioned Scotland Yard.’
‘I remember that one of the detectives mentioned them at some stage but when I asked, he just said that this line of inquiry didn’t lead anywhere.’
‘And Interpol?’
‘Nothing. Everyone kept telling us we must go through the police, that the Police Nationale were in charge. Then, every year on the anniversary I demanded a fresh investigation. I don’t know how much they did or didn’t do but they insisted that the case wasn’t closed.’
‘And now, the tenth year. One last try?’
‘I must do what I can. But realistically…’ She gives a weary shrug. ‘Realistically, Mr Mains, you’re my one last try.’
He feels the weight of her words. He feels sorry for her. Then he feels sorry for himself, knowing that he will almost certainly fail to offer her the kind of closure she so clearly needs.
He could caution her not to get her hopes up but she didn’t have a heck of a lot of them in the first place. She was going through the motions, ticking one last box.
‘Madam Faure, I’m sure you know that there are big international detective agencies who would be able to cover much more ground than me. Why haven’t you hired one of them?’
She smiled. ‘Aren’t you flattered? No? Well, of course you’re right. And I did that once. You see, for all their resources, you have one attribute that they don’t.’
He waited.
‘Your connections in the police.’
He feels himself choke. How could he tell her that most of the hierarchy in police HQ hated his guts, that they’d been only too glad to get rid of him for the price of a private investigator’s licence. He starts to protest but she holds up her hands. ‘Mr Mains, I am convinced that there’s something they’re not telling me, that they’ve kept to themselves all these years. Oh, I know you’re sceptical about any mention of a sixth sense or whatever. But it’s not that. It’s an impression I had at the time and it’s still there every time the senior officer does a so-called cold case review.’
His own experience of the culture amongst top cops told him that her suspicion may well be right. He knew, for instance, that they’d closed ranks over one of their number who’d become very rich by feeding insider information to a notorious hitman. He knew it but couldn’t yet prove it.
He pulls his notebook towards him and realises that he stopped writing long ago.
‘Can you give me the names of the police officers involved? And can I ask that when you leave here, you sit down somewhere and write a list of everyone who was present or in any way connected with the family and events of that day. Your husband will be available, I assume?’
She pouted and blew a puff of air. ‘If he’ll speak to you. We divorced not long afterwards. It had been a long time coming.